Tuesday, 23 October 2012

The Original (and the best) guide for my X-Wing guide series, the iconic X-Wing. Of course many of us have played as Luke Skywalker reliving that epic moment of a New Hope where he destroys the Death Star either in our gardens or bedrooms as children, on PC's over the years and now finally we can do it with FFG's amazing miniatures range.

On a personal level this ship is easily my top space fighter of all time, hands down the best looking in any science fiction series, it just oozes greatness. of course this is my personal opinion :)

The X-Wing is the first rebel fighter you will be using in X-Wing and it is one of the most versatile ships in the game. It has good damage with 3 attack die rolls before modifiers and can take a decent amount of damage when you couple it's shields and hull (for a total of 5) making it a tough fighter to bring down in a one on one fight.

It isn't quite as maneuverable as the TIE Fighter and not as fast in a straight line, so Imperial pilots will likely want to focus on sharp turns to avoid being tailed. The X-wing can mount 1 astromech droid and take 1 weapon upgrade, although higher cost or more skilled pilots can also take a piloting upgrade card also. Overall the X-Wing is the workhorse of Rebel forces and no squadron is complete without at least one flying space superiority for the team.

All X-Wing's are capable of using the (Focus) and (Target Lock) abilities.

Expansion content list:

Pilot Cards:

Wedge Antilles
Garven Dreis
Red Squadron Pilot
Rookie Pilot

Equipment Cards:

Proton Torpedoes
R5-K6
R5 Astromech
Expert Handling
Marksmanship

Here are a list of pilots listed in order of skill in Ascending order.
(All squad costs are the base cost of the unit before upgrades are applied)

Name: Tarn MisonSkill Value ÷ 3Pilot Ability: When an enemy ship declares you as the target of an attack, you may acquire a target lock on that ship.Upgrades: Astromech Droid, Weapon SlotSquad Cost: 23

Since the base point limit of organised play is 100 points you can see how X-Wings can become expensive even before picking upgrades. The upside is the bonuses of these skilled pilots. Wedge is truly a force to reckoned with when he reduces his targets defence die by 1 even before modifiers, while Luke can keep himself going by dodging attacks more often.

Biggs and Garven are great support characters. Bigg's can basically tank for you so long as he stays close to his allies, while Garven can help lesser skilled pilots by giving his used focus token to friendly pilots as their turn comes up.

What I really like about X-Wing is that the pilot's have no effect on the fighters base stats, instead relying on the abilities of these pilots to alter the outcome. It also means that a player who wants more rebel fighters on the board need not worry about having weaker ships, since every X-Wing does 3 damage potentially every round. It is possible to field a rookie squad led by Garven Dreis allowing 4 X-Wings to enter the battle before upgrades, and even then you have 11 points left to pick astromech droids which can make a rookie pilot quite difficult to kill.

Next I will list the Astromech droids, Weapon upgrades and pilot upgrades available to rebel players.

Name: R5-P9Ability: At the end of the combat phase, you may spend 1 of your focus tokens to recover 1 shield (up to your shield value).Cost: 3 Name: R5-K6Ability: After spending your
target lock, roll 1 defence die. On a (Evade) result, immediately
acquire a target lock on that same ship. You cannot spend this target
during this attack.Cost: 2

Name: R3-A2Ability: When you declare the target of your attack, if the defender is inside your firing arc, you may receive 1 stress token to cause the defender to receive 1 stress token.Cost: 2

Name: R4-D6Ability: When you are hit by an attack and there at least 3 uncanceled (hit) results, you may choose and cancel those results until there are 2 remaining. For each result canceled in this way, receive 1 stress token.Cost: 1

Name:R2-D6Ability: Your upgrade bar gains the (pilot upgrade) icon. You cannot equip this upgrade if you already have a (pilot upgrade) icon or if your pilot skill value is "2" or lower.Cost: 1

Name: R5 AstromechAbility: During the End phase, you may choose 1 of your faceup damage cards with the ship trait and flip it facedown.Cost: 1

Name: R2 AstromechAbility: You may treat all 1- and 2- speed maneuvers as green maneuvers.Cost:1

It is worth mentioning here that any droid that has a unique name can only be used once, so obviously you cannot have R2-D2 in both Luke's ship and Bigg' for instance. On the other hand any droid with the name R5/R2 astromech droid can be used as many times as you have cards. Another important note is that the unique droids can be used in any pilots X-Wing or Y-Wing. There are no restrictions as to who may have what droid in their fighter.

The X-Wing has access to Proton Torpedoes. Proton Torpedoes are very powerful but are range specific so TIE pilots can nullify them by getting in close. The other factor to consider is that rebel players need to have target lock before firing them, so in effect they give up a focus token which could be necessary to avoid damage.

With the addition of the GR-75 we also have the flechette torpedoes for the X-Wing and presumably other ships too. I added them here because they came specifically with the X-Wing.

Pilot Upgrades ÷

Name: MarksmanshipAbility: Action - When attacking this round you may change 1 of (Focus) results to a (Critical hit) result and all of your other (Focus) results to (Hit) results.Cost: 3

Name: Swarm TacticsAbility: At the start of the combat phase, choose 1 friendly ship at Range 1. Until the end of this phase, treat the chosen ship as if it's pilot skill were equal to your pilot skill.Cost: 2

Name: Expert HandlingAbility: Action - Perform a barrel roll. If you do not have the barrel rolls action icon, receive 1 stress token. You may then remove 1 enemy target lock from your ship.Cost: 2

Name: DeterminationAbility: When you are dealt a faceup damage card with the Pilot trait, discard it immediately without resolving its effect.Cost: 1

Granted Expert handling at the moment only really works for imperial players who need to get rid of those pesky target locks, but since Slave I may have this ability it could be useful for rebel pilots also. Determination is great for negating stat reducing pilot damage while swarm tactics can quickly whittle down a tough opponent if used right. Marksmanship is the real killer here though, being it can cause massive damage on a good roll. Couple this with Wedge and most TIE fighters are going to be either destroyed or close to it if he gets a good shot off.

Well that's the X-Wing covered, tomorrow I will post the Y-Wing stats, pilots and upgrades along with my views on how best to use them. I will also be updating these posts as new cards come out along with new pilots and abilities, along with a few more pictures are I get them for certain cards. So bookmark these pages if you find them useful.